Within contemporary political theory, liberals and conservatives, moderns and postmoderns, Marxists and post-Marxists alike mark out their positions vis-a-vis Jurgen Habermas' theory of communicative action and discourse ...

Governments can engage in budgetary social policy by supporting income maintenance through social insurance and assistance programs or by providing social infrastructures and services such as public housing, education, and ...

During the initial years of their rule, 1927 to 1937, did the Nationalists transform the politics of rural China? Through a study of Nationalist political organization and policy implementation in one particular area of ...

This dissertation explores the relationship between intra-industry trade and domestic trade politics in developed economies. I develop a theory of the political effects of this fast-growing and undertheorized type of trade, ...

The Economic Contract Law of the People's Republic of China expresses the regime's willingness to extend to economic actors limited private economic rights under the new economic reform policies. The emergence of private ...

This dissertation examines the relationship between political competition and judicial independence in non-democratic polities. In it I advance two key arguments. The first is that the common "political insurance" explanation ...

This dissertation challenges liberal theories of political legitimacy by questioning the foundational status of autonomy in the spheres of consent and political obligation. I propose that we conceptualize political legitimacy ...

"The Political Life of Black Infant Mortality" tracks the trajectory of black infant death as a political problem from approximately 1800 to the present. I argue that the overwhelming disproportion between black and white ...

This dissertation is a work of comparative political theory that draws attention to how religious beliefs can generate fundamentally different conceptions of what is political. I argue that Theravada Buddhism is the source ...

In the 1970s and 1980s the United States government initiated what we call the "War on Drugs." Soon after, state governments began to enact new legislation imposing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, and ...

What explains the South Korean Catholic Church's increased sociopolitical activity during the 1970s and 1980s after almost two centuries of relative silence and inaction? This study hypothesizes and affirms that the Church's ...

This dissertation examines the species extinction crisis as a matter of environmental political theory. By engaging the anthropocentrism/ecocentrism debate, literature in green deliberative democracy and green civic ...

The economies of the European former Soviet Union were dependent upon energy subsidies in the form of virtually free oil and natural gas imports from Russia, the loss of which implied dramatic shocks to domestic production ...

This research examines how government agencies adapt to new or qualitatively different demands from policymakers. I argue when faced with these demands, an agency's leaders bargain at arms length with their overseers for ...

Cross-racial mobilization (CRM) is conscious race-targeted mobilization of blocs of voters of one racial group by politicians and campaign operatives of another racial group. To date, no theoretical framework has articulated ...

The emergence of the Tea Party movement is a reminder that the Far Right can be a powerful political force in America. Yet, scholarship on the Far Right pales in comparison to work on left-wing social movements. My project ...

This study compares the legal consciousness and legal mobilization of battered women in two cities (Seattle, Washington and Phoenix, Arizona) with similar laws but different local response to domestic violence. The comparison ...

Left parties are beset by political challenges to traditional goals of social justice and full employment. The literature which examines the recent politics of party program change is dominated by theories focusing on ...

What explains variation over the issues federal courts examine over time? Adopting an interbranch approach, I argue that this variation is a function of changes in rules of access. Rules of access govern whether litigants ...

This project examines the ways in which new members experience political socialization in a new nation, focusing primarily on the process experienced by adult Mexican immigrants. The theory of multi-tiered membership ...